Letter: In Focus column raised questions about Obama skirting the law

Robert Ferguson, a man I deeply admire for his past accomplishments in the nuclear field, recently charged the president of systematically ignoring federal law to further his political agenda (In Focus, June 9). This is an impeachable offense. Ferguson apparently inductively reached this conclusion based upon the president's closure of the Yucca Mountain facility.

When the president made this decision, he could not know if it was against the law as no court had ruled on this particular point. Whether this action was illegal will not be known until the legal process runs the course. Leaders often move close to the legal edge in furtherance of their chosen goals.

Ferguson is well known for his completion of the construction of the Washington Public Power Supply System's No. 2 reactor. Early in his tenure at WPPSS, he fired the site contractors virtually en masse and brought in Bechtel Corp. to finish the project. This decision was crucial to plant completion. It was a master stroke.

At the time, Ferguson could not have known whether this decision was legal as it skated close to the edge of then-existing Washington state contracting law.